I looked on Pirate’s Bay and The Devil Wears Prada has the highest figures I’ve ever seen. The original movie, 20 years ago. At the time of my visit, it had 2017 seeding and 2059 downloading. For comparison’s sake Ghostbusters had 152 seeding and seven (!) downloading; Goodfellas had 293 and 49. The seeding figures count as heavyweight on Pirate’s Bay, but not next to Devil Wears. To play extra fair, let’s take another male classic, this one from the same year that Devil came out. The Departed, released in 2006, scored 443 and 29. But Devil’s seeding score was four and a half times bigger and its download score 70 times bigger. Those downloads are remarkable; as you see from the other three movies, usually that figure doesn’t come to much. But there’s a small stampede of people who want to see Devil Wears Prada, the old one.
That’s news to me. I’m also surprised by what The Washington Post reports about The Devil Wears Prada 2, the sequel that just came out. From what the Post says, the new film ($91 million in five days, domestic) pulls the same sort of stunts as Godfather III. Enzo the Baker and Johnny Fontaine popped up for old times’ sake, and the new Devil starts with Anne Hathaway brushing her teeth in the mirror because that’s how the old Devil started. And on like that. I mean that the film’s audience has held tight for decades, building up a love of the film’s incidental details because of watching and rewatching. Now bases must be touched and seeing that done is a thrill for the loyalists.
I knew The Devil Wears Prada was a hit and I’m not surprised people still like it—the makers did a nice job. But I am surprised that the audience has grown so big and cares so much. Of course, I’m also surprised by how many people love, not just like, Michael Jackson, and how willingly they scribble over the accusations against him. I knew he was still big, I didn’t know he was godly and sacrosanct to so many people. Demographics play a part here, I guess. Like many white men with scraggly hair, I’m devoted to Prince, not Michael. And just by being a man, I’m not well positioned to care about Devil.
Now that I’ve stumbled across the Devil phenomenon, I see a lesson I’d like to draw. Hollywood has tried making movies for women by taking male classics and swapping in a new cast, this one female. For example, there was the female Ghostbusters (32 and 4), which inspired terrible complaining. Male fans thought feminists were playing capture the flag and trying some sort of cultural-space landgrab. My preferred theory: executives were being executives, lunging for something big and obvious (such as a well-known film franchise) because to them that felt like action. How many women are going to care about Ghostbusters, This Time with Breasts? It turns out they want a well-made comedy-drama where a woman has to battle for her career and self-respect; even better, I suppose, if the battle involves grappling with other women’s judgment of every little thing she does, which is the situation in Devil.
A woman wrote the novel, other women bought millions of copies. So this story by a woman and for women got Hollywood’s attention and became a movie. If now the movie’s some sort of classic, I’d say that’s because of fine execution and a storyline that hits a nerve that only a woman could locate. My lesson: if you want a women’s movie classic or a black superhero, or any change that will spread around representation, don’t take what you know and minoritize it. The people in question, gays or blacks or women or whoever, chances are better if they come up with something.